BETHLEHEM, TEXAS (Limestone County). Bethlehem, a predominantly black community west of Mexia in north central Limestone County, grew up around a Primitive Baptist church. Around 1900 the school at Bethlehem was merged with the schools at Sardis and Smith Chapel to form Woodland School. This institution was consolidated with the school at Rocky Crossing in the 1930s. Bethlehem was not marked on county highways maps by the 1940s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Walter F. Cotton, History of Negroes of Limestone County from 1860 to 1939 (Mexia, Texas: Chatman and Merriwether, 1939). James Cecil Moore, Reorganization of School Districting in Limestone County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1935).
